The Question:

Can you identify and give any details of a prison fire that
occurred in early 1930, before May, that took several lives? It was a
disaster of such proportion that it made the news in Europe as well as
in the USA.

The Answer:

According to our sources, there was a fire on April 21, 1930 at
the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio that killed 320 convicts
— this sounds like the event you're looking for.

For more information on this incident and similar ones, check
out the Great
Disasters (we know it sounds like an oxymoron) section of our
almanac. Or you can go straight to our list of major Fires and
Explosions.